Thanks for you comments.
A photograph of your wiring might help us spot the problem.
It's probably something very basic like wrong breadboard hole, or perhaps a faulty breadboard line ?
I should work through it like a beginner and confirm every connection has continuity ! (I use a multimeter set to buzzer)
If you're willing to take a look at pics, i should be grateful for whatever comments i get.
Looks kind of messy to me - might have to learn to take better pics of breadboards !!


The pic actually shows the setup that works, with the individual lines to GND, but i've also left the 'chain' in there - i suppose that's a no-no if i weren't a beginner... (double connections in parallel means more current flows - have i got that right ?)